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10 Signs That The American People Are Starting To Freak Out About The Condition Of The Economy

All over America, restlessness and frustration are growing. It has now been almost three years since the great financial crash of 2008, and yet the U.S. economy is still a complete and total mess. In fact, there are all sorts of signs that things are about to get even worse, and the American people are just about fed up. Virtually every major poll, survey and measure of consumer confidence shows that the American people are becoming more pessimistic about the economy. Millions of hard working Americans that worked their fingers to the bone for their employers and that did everything “right” are sitting at home on their couches tonight staring blankly at the television. Many of them still have a hard time believing that they were laid off and that there is nobody out there that wants to give them a good job. There are millions of other Americans that won’t get much sleep tonight because they will spend much of the night rolling around in bed wondering how they are possibly going to be able to pay the mortgage. We have never faced such an extended economic downturn in modern U.S. history, and a lot of people are starting to freak out about the condition of the economy. As Gerald Celente likes to say: “When people lose everything and have nothing left to lose – they lose it.”

Every single month, the number of good jobs continues to go down. Wall Street actually rewards companies that have a good “outsourcing strategy”. As I have written about previously, a growing percentage of the jobs that are being “created” these days are very low paying jobs. But you can’t support a family, pay a mortgage or even afford decent health insurance on what you would make stocking shelves at Target or passing out buckets of chicken for KFC.

The American people keep waiting for “hope” and “change” to show up, but all they get instead are more helpings of “despair” and “frustration”.

Sadly, most Americans still cling to the hope that if the “next election” will just turn out the right way that things will be okay. But the truth is that things seem to stay on pretty much the same course no matter who we put into office.

For many years the status quo seemed to be okay for most people, but now we are starting to reap the results of the economic seeds that we have sown.

Now our economic decline is starting to accelerate and people are starting to panic. Most Americans may not know why all of this is happening, but what many of them do know is that something in their gut is telling them that things have gone terribly, terribly wrong somehow.

The following are 10 signs that the American people are starting to freak out about the condition of the economy….

#1 Things have already gotten so bad that Americans will literally trample one another just to get on a waiting list for rental assistance vouchers. Just check out the following excerpt from a local news report about a recent incident in Texas….

At least eight people were hurt Thursday morning while scrambling to line up for a limited number of Dallas County rental vouchers — after waiting for hours in their cars.

People lined up Thursday morning to apply for Dallas County Section 8 housing vouchers. Dallas County sheriff’s spokesman Kim Leach estimated the crowd at about 5,000.

Video of this incident is posted below. One of the people that was trampled was a pregnant woman….

#2 Almost every measurement of consumer confidence is going down. For example, the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index fell from 61.7 in May to 58.5 in June.

#3 The Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index has fallen to 63.8 after being at 71.5 in June. It is now the lowest that it has been since the last recession “ended”.

Close to $2 of every $10 that went into Americans’ wallets last year were payments like jobless benefits, food stamps, Social Security and disability, according to an analysis by Moody’s Analytics.

There are tens of millions of Americans that are living “on the edge”, but at least the massive government handout programs are enabling most of them to survive.

So what happens when the checks from the government stop coming?

Look, I am not advocating that the “welfare society” that we have become is a good thing. Today, Americans receive more in direct government benefits than they pay in taxes. That is not even close to sustainable.

What I am pointing out is that tens of millions of Americans that are deeply suffering are currently being pacified by these government handouts. Once the handouts are cut significantly or taken away completely it is going to unleash a lot of anger and frustration.

Of course what the American people really need are good jobs that will give them dignity and allow them to provide for their families, but millions of those keep getting shipped out of the country.

So the only thing that millions of Americans still have to hang on to are their government benefits. Once that changes a whole lot of people are going to throw a fit.

In fact, we are already seeing some really bizarre behavior across the United States. In many areas of the country we are literally watching society crumble right in front of our very eyes.

But not all Americans will resort to lawless behavior. In fact, there are a lot of really good, hard working people out there that this economy has left behind.

There are some people that have put in decades of hard work only to see their dreams shrivel up over the past few years.

Some of the stories people send me are absolutely heartbreaking. I have looked at each and every comment that has been left on The Economic Collapse over the past couple of years. Needless to say, it has taken a huge investment of my time to go through more than 20,000 comments. But in the process I have gotten a very good idea of what people are going through across the nation.

So how badly are people hurting? Well, a reader identified as “Anna44″ recently shared with us what some of her family members have been going through in this economy….

My B-I-L was a dealership owner/manager who worked long hours over 38 years and had to close his doors when Saturn was dissolved. When his dealership went under, 72 others lost their job. That’s 72 families who took a hit. He lost his home, everything. A few of his former employees lost their homes as well eventually. They were not lazy or WORTHLESS. It took him a year and a half to finally find something, but now he lives in a hotel unable to qualify for a house or apartment. This is an educated man who competed nationwide for top dog and got it more then once. His biggest fault? He’s almost 60, young enough to need the work, but too old to be hired.

As for my husband- 26 years AF officer, handling millions & billions on International & National levels has just entered his 7th month of unemployment. Two tours abroad- lazy he is NOT. He doesn’t qualify for unemployment, nor is he counted because he gets a retirement check. He wants and needs to work- yet there is little out there. If he doesn’t find something soon, we too will lose the home we sunk every cent into after 20 years of saving for it!

All across America tonight there are similar stories. People have done everything “right” all of their lives and they are frustrated that now they have been pushed to the edge of poverty by this economy.

Prepare for the worse. No one is big enough to bail our the US. Food, water…and best to have a place to go. Civil unrest is the greatest threat. Silver and gold will convert into the new currency coming. Remember people die during severe depression. Don’t be one of them.

Like or Dislike: 00

oatka

“A recent poll taken by Rasmussen found that 68 percent of Americans believe that we are actually in a recession right now.”

The other 32 percent know we are in a Depression.

Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 100

Robert Hahn

Americans voted for this. They just don’t know they did. Various politicians have been warning about “the deficit” for thirty or more years. For most of that time they were dismissed as cranks.

Whatever else you can say about him, Ross Perot finally explained to Americans in simple terms why “the deficit” matters, and for a brief time people were actually concerned about it. But not enough to pay down the debt.

Soon any sort of spending cuts were a form of heartlessness, and Republicans were once again pilloried for wanting to throw widows and orphans into the streets, and so they learned: the American people want spending.

And so it came to be that no matter which party was in power, the Freebie Spigot was always on. Only cranks and cruel Snidely Whiplash types could be opposed.

Now we owe fourteen trillion dollars, our government consumes 25% of everything we make or do, and the economy has flatlined. In fact we hope it’s flat, because it might be getting worse.

I am a 62 year old lady. When I was a child, I saw that the economy was ‘broken’. I did not hang with my peers, I stayed near the adults to hear their worries. They complained about working and paying taxes. I vowed never to work or pay taxes. Well, I am on SSI and that is soon to go ! ? ! ?
BLESS THE BITCHES St. Jo B’

Like or Dislike: 13

Lilly

What is happening is that as baby boomers’ small businesses are displaced in this horrible economy and retiring, jobs are not going to be coming back because small business creates most of the jobs in the US. Credit has dried up for start-ups.

Greenspan said the other day that the younger generation coming up beind boomers don’t have the ambition and abilities to replace them in the work place. I don’t know if that is true, but it’s looking bleak.

One thing I do know is that politicans in DC are back to demanding that banks give loans for houses based on race rather than financial qualification standards. This, after they crashed the real estate market with the same insanity beginning in the Clinton administration. They never learn and they never stop destroying people’s lives.

Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 131

Roy N

If the public was better informed, we wouldn’t be going through this mess now. The public (along with Washington) is economically illiterate. The Dems and the media promote envy, jealously and anti-capitalism at every turn. The public doesn’t under supply-demand interactions, that capital drives employment and that central planning is a disaster. If the media were more balanced in their reporting, people would be more aware of what drives the economy and hacks like Obama would never be elected such was the case until 1960. The ignorance of the masses because of Washington and the media has cost us trillions of dollars since 1930.

Look, if voters , like in Hawaii are going to continually elect liberal tax-spending-regs hikers, they are eventually be horrified that local, state, federal Dems will be thwarted when they run out of our monies! Then they will print, use the Fed, call out race-class warfare smears. That is how they work. Hawaii and Ca., simply refuse to take this seriously and elect for decades hopelessly socialist liberal Dems who keep voting for entitlements-welfare, and projects and bills that undermine free enterprise, our energy use, our military and small businesses. So, on it goes until a crash comes and it is coming. In 2.5 yrs. Obama has racked up more debt-deficits than most Presidents in our entire history since WWII. And Gallup says he is down to 42% approval today. If Americans realized how bad it was, he would be down to 22% approval!!!

Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 120

Thomas

You really think the republicans are any better?….I am sorry but I don’t buy that divisional logic…Look at what Bush did……They all work for the same corporate masters until we realize that it will never get better………Blame the democrats who blame the republicans while the bankers just laugh at you……Bush started 2 useless wars and how many bailouts, that bankrupted the country as much as any liberal in history and Obama went with that and started his own war in Libya……No difference sorry……Vote Ron Paul if you are serious about fiscal responsibility…..He’s a republican but unlike the others he understands what needs to be done, and has the backbone to do it but his loyalty is to the country not the corporations or “the party” big difference…..why do we pay interest to the federal reserve to print money and loan it to us? We are capable of printing our own money and until we fix that it doesn’t matter republican, democrat they are all economically fundamentally handicapped.. Cut from the same cloth with a few exceptions like Gary Johnson…..What did people expect from Abercrombie he was in congress during the destruction of America, but what could they do Iona was even worse a former drug user that turned into a hypocritical fanatic that would have destroyed Hawaii as well….He was more worried about people smoking a joint and gay marriage than the economy……There was no good choice Lingle was just a corporate puppet that led Hawaii into the economic black hole we are in now, she didn’t cut spending like she should have…..I am certainly not defending Abercrombie no way but its not about republicans or democrats the two party system has been corrupted, its bought and paid for. Until we understand that they are just playing us against each other because if we all stood together we could fix it, but as long as we are divided they have a blank check……Yea its the democrats fault….is not its all the republicans fault…..LOL its our fault for being suckers and playing the game….IMO that is……..

Empire builders have already stolen what they could while citizens were preoccupied… now Elvis has left the building… they rob and plunder wherever they go… Monopoly and blood are what they know – so wake up America and defend whatever is left… or not. LOL

Hot debate. What do you think? 67

Jack

This is the death nell attitude and bleat. It’s the empire builders who hire everyone and build an industry (aka empire) who are to blame? You can’t be that ignorant even after 2.5 years of that arse we call a president and his disasterous fiscal policy. Add in Geitner and Bernake, some fear mongering and you have idiot soup.

Reward the empire builders with allowing them to build the empire in the US. Hire tens of thousands of workers (Gates, Buffet, Walton) and drive us back to economic and industrial superiority.

Then the fools who still believe in Gore and his religion can have their Prius and Gold Leed house. They’ll have a job!